Square Enix and Xenogears Celebrate 20th Anniversary with New Figures and Artwork

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the acclaimed JRPG Xenogears, and Square Enix is celebrating together with the original Character Designer Kunihiko Tanaka and Mecha Designer Junya Ishigaki by releasing some new artwork.

The two artists are collaborating with Square Enix on a project that will bring the legendary game back at least with some new figures, and today the publisher shared two pictures of prototypes for Bring Arts figures portraying Fei and Elly. You can see them in the gallery below.

Ishigaki-sensei also contributed by showing what appears to be a drawing overlayed to a prototype of a figure of Fei’s Weltall, alongside the artwork used to create it (third and fourth pictures). He also mentioned that it’s “coming soon,” encouraging fans to wait just a little more.

Meanwhile, Tanaka-sensei posted a large batch of artwork he created for the game, apparently including a couple of new drawings, alongside some older pieces that were never delivered or rejected.

We also get to see some work he did for the figures (fifth and sixth picture in the gallery), as he explains that he carefully respected the textures created for the original game, without making any superficial changes, but he actually added the soles of Fei’s boots.

Alongside the figure project, Square Enix is also going to host a concert in April to commemorate the anniversary, directed by acclaimed composer Yasunori Mitsuda.

Xenogears launched for the original PlayStation in Japan on February 11th, 1998. It reached North America on October 20th of the same year. A PSOne Classics version is currently available for PS3, PSP, and PS Vita, but Square Enix has been silent on the possibility of more modern ports. The game is certainly considered one of the best JRPGs of all time.

Following the release of Xenogears, developer Monolith Soft was acquired by Namco. During that time they created the Xenosaga series, and when they were bought later by Nintendo, Monolith gave birth to the Xenoblade series. You can check out the new artwork and figures in the gallery below.